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Through my little study of narrators and narrations, I have looked through about 5,000+ names. And I have yet to find any of our classical Shee`ah scholar weaken any of the narrators because they were "muqassir", on the other hand you find an innumerable amount of times that narrators were weakened because they were ghulaat.

Besides the hadeeth of "Don't put us too high or too low", is there really a punishment through hadeeth for being a muqassir? As opposed to the umpteen number of narrations that say they will go to hell, kaafir, mushrik, etc.

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Through my little study of narrators and narrations, I have looked through about 5,000+ names. And I have yet to find any of our classical Shee`ah scholar weaken any of the narrators because they were "muqassir", on the other hand you find an innumerable amount of times that narrators were weakened because they were ghulaat.

Besides the hadeeth of "Don't put us too high or too low", is there really a punishment through hadeeth for being a muqassir? As opposed to the umpteen number of narrations that say they will go to hell, kaafir, mushrik, etc.

(salam)

This makes sense because the onus on the one who accepts the Imams [a] is to follow them, not engage in speculation about them and their status.

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All the beliefs described of ghulaats don't fit anywhere into mainstream Shia Beliefs today,so you can't copy paste these narrations on them,if you do then even Sheikh Sadooq,and Sheikh Mufeed believed ,and narrated all those stuff which is ghuluw in your dictionary,so then start a new thread.

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All the beliefs described of ghulaats don't fit anywhere into mainstream Shia Beliefs today,so you can't copy paste these narrations on them,if you do then even Sheikh Sadooq,and Sheikh Mufeed believed ,and narrated all those stuff which is ghuluw in your dictionary,so then start a new thread.

'Was sheikh mufeed,and sadooq,ghaalis?'' lets have a poll.

Which beliefs described above do you not see fitting into mainstream Shia beliefs? Just one example mentioned above is tafwid, which many Shias believe in bi-ithnillah. Also, I don't understand your point about Sheikh al-Saduq and Sheikh al-Mufid... What exactly are you trying to say? Also, why is it that many of your posts are ad hominem?

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All the beliefs described of ghulaats don't fit anywhere into mainstream Shia Beliefs today,so you can't copy paste these narrations on them,if you do then even Sheikh Sadooq,and Sheikh Mufeed believed ,and narrated all those stuff which is ghuluw in your dictionary,so then start a new thread.

'Was sheikh mufeed,and sadooq,ghaalis?'' lets have a poll.

If we want to know their views, then we should look at what they wrote, not what they narrated in their books. They may not have understood the hadith in the same way you do, for example.

Anyway, did everyone just skip over my second post. Here is a well-known modern scholar explicitly saying the classical scholars had different beliefs:

And the bottom line is that it is apparent that the beliefs of the classical scholars were different, so sometimes something according to them would be invalid/corrupt, kufr (disbelief) or ghulu, while according to the latter scholars it would not be so, in fact it would be regarded obligatory to believe in it. Therefore it is required to think over their jarh (attacking/weakening of hadith narrator by rijal scholars) due to the issues such as those mentioned.

(Taraiful Maqal, Ayatullah Burujerdi, Volume 2, Page 356)

The idea that in comparison to today's popular beliefs (which is also what I was comparing their alleged 'taqsir' to), that the classical scholars could be considered ghulat is completely absurd. However, it is not at all absurd to wonder whether such beliefs would now be considered as taqsir.

I often get accused of being a muqassir for example, yet you would be hard-pressed to find anything I believe in that wasn't the belief of at least one of the scholars I referenced above. So if I'm a muqassir for repeating their views, then how can they not be?

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If we want to know their views, then we should look at what they wrote, not what they narrated in their books. They may not have understood the hadith in the same way you do, for example.

Anyway, did everyone just skip over my second post. Here is a well-known modern scholar explicitly saying the classical scholars had different beliefs:

And the bottom line is that it is apparent that the beliefs of the classical scholars were different, so sometimes something according to them would be invalid/corrupt, kufr (disbelief) or ghulu, while according to the latter scholars it would not be so, in fact it would be regarded obligatory to believe in it. Therefore it is required to think over their jarh (attacking/weakening of hadith narrator by rijal scholars) due to the issues such as those mentioned.

(Taraiful Maqal, Ayatullah Burujerdi, Volume 2, Page 356)

The idea that in comparison to today's popular beliefs (which is also what I was comparing their alleged 'taqsir' to), that the classical scholars could be considered ghulat is completely absurd. However, it is not at all absurd to wonder whether such beliefs would now be considered as taqsir.

I often get accused of being a muqassir for example, yet you would be hard-pressed to find anything I believe in that wasn't the belief of at least one of the scholars I referenced above. So if I'm a muqassir for repeating their views, then how can they not be?

"Indeed Allah, Mighty and Exalted, created certain creatures from His light, and a mercy from His mercy for the sake of His Mercy. For these are the eye of Allah that sees, and His ear that hears, and His tongue that speaks to His creation by His permission, and the safeguards over what has descended from (His) justifications and warnings and proofs. And through them He wards off grievances, and through them He sends down mercy, and through them He enlivens the dead, and causes to die the living. And through them He afflicts His creation (with tribulations), and through them He judges cases among His creation."

I asked: May I be your ransom - Who are these?

He (as) replied: Al-Awsiyaa (the vice-regents).

[source: Al-Tawheed by Sheikh Sadooq, Pg 167, H 24]

Imam Reza(as)

"When a hardship befalls you seek Allah’s help through us, and this is the saying of Allah, the Mighty and the Majestic, ‘And for Allah are the beautiful names, thus call upon Him by them." Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 91, p. 6

Imam Ali (a) says:

"I am the beautiful names of Allah, His great exemplars and His great signs." Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 53, p. 47, Hadith #20

I have many more,but what about them,they interpreted in other ways? how do you know? and what was the interpretations? These words are quite clear.

What a baseless refutation is that narrating something does n't become part of their beliefs,so when they considered such things ghuluw,or kufr,why were they propagating kufr?

As for Ayatollah borujerdi,he is may be referring to those 'sahw' sort of beliefs,but still that is just an opinion of scholar,whereas we have their written proofs as well,so we may not know ,in which context ,Ayatollah borujerdi is referring,but what they narrated is quite clear.

"Indeed Allah, Mighty and Exalted, created certain creatures from His light, and a mercy from His mercy for the sake of His Mercy. For these are the eye of Allah that sees, and His ear that hears, and His tongue that speaks to His creation by His permission, and the safeguards over what has descended from (His) justifications and warnings and proofs. And through them He wards off grievances, and through them He sends down mercy, and through them He enlivens the dead, and causes to die the living. And through them He afflicts His creation (with tribulations), and through them He judges cases among His creation." The first part of the hadith shows that the Ahl al-Bayt (as) carry out the will of Allah (swt) on earth. The second part of the hadith underscores the obligation to follow them and be loyal to them. Those who follow them (as) taste His Mercy because He blesses them with iman, those who reject them or are wishy-washy in their views towards them (as) are afflicted by Him. The people are judged in accordance to their love of them (as), and there are explicit hadith on this. Those who have recognized the imam of their time and follow him (which includes his predecessors) are truly alive, and those who have not are truly dead. I don't see any other strange, esoteric, odd meaning you could pin to this hadith.

I asked: May I be your ransom - Who are these?

He (as) replied: Al-Awsiyaa (the vice-regents).

[source: Al-Tawheed by Sheikh Sadooq, Pg 167, H 24]

Imam Reza(as)

"When a hardship befalls you seek Allah’s help through us, and this is the saying of Allah, the Mighty and the Majestic, ‘And for Allah are the beautiful names, thus call upon Him by them." Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 91, p. 6 This is a rather vague saying, and I don't know what the Imam (as) necessarily means here. What does it mean to ask for Allah's help through them (as)? What's the original source, by the way?

Imam Ali (a) says:

"I am the beautiful names of Allah, His great exemplars and His great signs." Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 53, p. 47, Hadith #20 What's the original source, by the way? Majlisi had a knack for discovering new hadith.

I have many more,but what about them,they interpreted in other ways? how do you know? and what was the interpretations? These words are quite clear.

What a baseless refutation is that narrating something does n't become part of their beliefs,so when they considered such things ghuluw,or kufr,why were they propagating kufr? Your argument rests on the assumption that what they narrated they actually interpreted to be ghuluww, and that's something you'll need to demonstrate first. Otherwise, they just narrated what they believed to be authentic by their standards and may have understood differently than you or present-day scholars.

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"However, the minimalist approach, which limits the knowledge of the Imams to the area of law alone, was more popular in his day and in the following generations. [...] A similar opinion was held by two of the most prominent Imami scholars of the Buwayhid era, al-Sharif al-Murtada and Abu Jafar al-Tusi."

Assuming this is accurate, is nobody still willing to consider this taqsir?

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Assuming this is accurate, is nobody still willing to consider this taqsir?

In recent times, due to the influx of mysticism into the Shia world and whatnot, I feel that many Shias have conflated and mixed issues which otherwise have nothing to do with each other. That leads them to take extreme positions on issues related to imamate and fall into ghuluww.

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If they are carrying out Allah's will on Earth,then what else we believe in?

That has been declared ghuluw from SC scholar so often,now if you say they were carrying out His will only when they were alive.

Then what do you say they were Allah's eyes,but then the eyes closed?

I don't need to waste lot of time,even this much refutation is enough.

In recent times, due to the influx of mysticism into the Shia world and whatnot, I feel that many Shias have conflated and mixed issues which otherwise have nothing to do with each other. That leads them to take extreme positions on issues related to imamate and fall into ghuluww.

Ok ghuluw is kufr,so by your definition,what the marjas are?

Do you declare them kaafir on this forum,they almost all believe in tawassul,YA ALI(AS) MADAD,so kindly shed your light on this as well?

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There was obviously a difference in opinion concerning the status of the Imams amongst the companions of the Imams and hence those who succeeded them. Accusations of ghuluw and taqseer were thrown around. In those times, it would have been easier to distinguish those who were correct from those who were false, by examining the evidences and questioning the individuals involved (if not the questioning the Imams themselves). In these days, it is harder with the loss of evidences and the death of individuals involved. We must therefore rely on surviving evidences, usually the books of the successors to the involved individuals, i.e. our scholars. The problem is that there is a contrast between the beliefs of someone like Sadooq and someone like Mufeed; so which is more correct?

If someone were to look at Sadooq and his associates amongst his predecessors and contemporaries as being wrong or muqassirs just because many modern Imamis believe something different, that would be narrow-minded. Indeed, if we assume that the majority of scholars held many of the positions that Sadooq did on these issues, then that they are closer to the time of the present Imams and their access to individuals of knowledge and books, etc, means that they are more likely to be correct.

There also people who fancy themselves as academics who condemn Sadooq and the Qummis but are actually biased individuals with poor research.

In Deen, it should be clear that the Imams opinions/words are the weightiest evidence on an issue. Definitely more so than rational arguments. The implications of this are important.

Shaykh Saduq:

He is perhaps the most obvious candidate for considering a muqassir, due to his famous beliefs on sahw an-nabi (forgetfulness of the Prophet (pbuh)). However, he had other beliefs that might lead a person today to not recognise him as a mainstream Shia.

Sahw an-nabi:

As for the claim of Abu Ja‘far (Shaykh Saduq), may Allah have mercy upon him, that he who accuses the learned divines of Qum of attributing to the Imams less than their due, should be stigmatized as an extremist. In fact, the charging of this group with such attribution is not a sign of excess, since amongst those who are mentioned as learned divines and scholars, there are many who accuse the bona fide scholars of attributing less than their due to the Imams, be they from Qum or from any other country or any other people.

We have heard a narration, the meaning of which is plain, related to the authority of Abu Ja`far Muhhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Walid" (one of Saduq's teachers), may Allah have mercy upon him, and the interpretation in favour of taqsir is inescapable. This is what is related on his authority: "The first degree of excess is to deny that the Prophet and the Imãms were ever fallible (sahw)", Then if this was indeed related by him, he in fact attributes less than their due to the Imams, and yet he is one of the divines of Qum.

It would be difficult to deny these ahadeeth based on rationality. Taqiyyah would seem to be the best possible refutation. To call Sadooq a muqassir because he chose to accept the authentic ahadeeth on this issue does not make sense to me personally.

Views of some modern scholars on the classical ones:

And the bottom line is that it is apparent that the beliefs of the classical scholars were different, so sometimes something according to them would be invalid/corrupt, kufr (disbelief) or ghulu, while according to the latter scholars it would not be so, in fact it would be regarded obligatory to believe in it. Therefore it is required to think over their jarh (attacking/weakening of hadith narrator by rijal scholars) due to the issues such as those mentioned.

(Taraiful Maqal, Ayatullah Burujerdi, Volume 2, Page 356)

We have warned more than once that an accusation from the classical scholars, especially of the ones from Qum, of a man (hadith narrator) being ghali should not be taken into consideration. This is because overall what is considered among the fundamentals of the religion these days was considered ghulu by them. Do not you see that they counted denial of the belief that the Prophet (pbuh) and the Imams (as) can forget as ghulu, even though one who does not deny that they (as) may forget would not be considered a momin (believer) these days. And Ayatullah Fadhil al Haeri excellently put it, where he said: "Accusation by the classical scholars of Qum, of hadith narrators being ghali and their exiling them from Qum (on charges of ghulu) does not prove in principle their da'f (weakness/unreliability). For indeed, most of our scholars and their most trustworthy ones would have been considered ghali by them, and if they had found them in Qum then they would have definitely exiled them from it inevitably."

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There was obviously a difference in opinion concerning the status of the Imams amongst the companions of the Imams and hence those who succeeded them. Accusations of ghuluw and taqseer were thrown around. In those times, it would have been easier to distinguish those who were correct from those who were false, by examining the evidences and questioning the individuals involved (if not the questioning the Imams themselves). In these days, it is harder with the loss of evidences and the death of individuals involved. We must therefore rely on surviving evidences, usually the books of the successors to the involved individuals, i.e. our scholars. The problem is that there is a contrast between the beliefs of someone like Sadooq and someone like Mufeed; so which is more correct?

If someone were to look at Sadooq and his associates amongst his predecessors and contemporaries as being wrong or muqassirs just because many modern Imamis believe something different, that would be narrow-minded. Indeed, if we assume that the majority of scholars held many of the positions that Sadooq did on these issues, then that they are closer to the time of the present Imams and their access to individuals of knowledge and books, etc, means that they are more likely to be correct.

There also people who fancy themselves as academics who condemn Sadooq and the Qummis but are actually biased individuals with poor research.

In Deen, it should be clear that the Imams opinions/words are the weightiest evidence on an issue. Definitely more so than rational arguments. The implications of this are important.

It would be difficult to deny these ahadeeth based on rationality. Taqiyyah would seem to be the best possible refutation. To call Sadooq a muqassir because he chose to accept the authentic ahadeeth on this issue does not make sense to me personally.

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If sahw e Nabi(saww) can be accepted (nauzbillah),then whats the guarantee of whole Prophethood?

Even if there is a Hadees that is the contradiction to Quran,in which Allah says ''He does n't stir His lips except what i permit''

so how He got sahw? its contradicting Quran,so has to be rejected,no matter what the ilm ul rijaal says,and who narrated it?

You've misquoted and misunderstood the verse. Here is the preface from Abdel Haleem of an-Najm followed by his modern translation of the first 22 verses. The verse you were referring is 3, which in Shakir's rendering is: "Nor does he speak out of desire."

This verse (or the surah even) is not talking about the Prophet's (pbuh) daily conduct and whatnot. It's reaffirming the divine origins of the Quran. I don't even know how this verse could apply to forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is not something that one does of his own desire, it just happens really without any control.

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You've misquoted and misunderstood the verse. Here is the preface from Abdel Haleem of an-Najm followed by his modern translation of the first 22 verses. The verse you were referring is 3, which in Shakir's rendering is: "Nor does he speak out of desire."

This verse (or the surah even) is not talking about the Prophet's (pbuh) daily conduct and whatnot. It's reaffirming the divine origins of the Quran. I don't even know how this verse could apply to forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is not something that one does of his own desire, it just happens really without any control.

Was it tafseer by Aimma(as)?

Forgetfulness make whole Prophethood suspicious,the one who teaches us every rukn of Islam,how can Allah let Him forget anything,its beyond comprehension.

I love how you pick and choose when to reject ahadith based on what the Qur'an says.

Even i feel the same when you pick and choose anything from any scholar,which suits your mood.
Edited June 12, 2012 by Kaniz e Zahra

HH what do u want someone to say, MUfeed and Saduq are muqassir's, even knowledgeable ppl would hesitate to judge so if u are waiting for some one to make that statement i doubt its gonna happen.

I think the question is, do we have any book or scholar with an undisputable set of aqeeda? or Are we the shia left for each one to analyse all the hadith, come to our own conclusions, then when they will obviosly be slightly different, point fingers and scream muqassir or ghulati?

I know its the onus of every muslim to research aqaid matters so its not a question of following a scholar. But obviously we know these are learned ppl and thats why we want to see what they say. Furthermore there is only so much u can get from a book...in the sense that it would be nice to have Saduq and Mufeed (ra) here today to explain what they have written, im sure it would be an enlightening conversation.

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If He forget he can misrepresent thing,forgetfulness doesn't mean a silence,so it is a contradiction.

This would be a problem if and only if there was no way for him to correct his mistake that he committed out of forgetfulness. That's not the case. In fact, an opportunity where he (pbuh) does forget and then corrects himself in the best way possible only points to his isma, not the other way around. It shows that he (pbuh) who only makes minor mistakes if he were to make any, has an uncommon and impressive ability to be diligent in correcting those. Whereas the majority of people would often overlook minor mistakes. That to me truly shows his status as prophet and affirms his humanity as well. Could also mean that Allah (swt) made him forget something only so he could teach the umma something.